The trouble with Roy

Has anybody else fallen back in love with Roy Keane, after his spectacular tirade against the Football Association of Ireland and the 'mentally weak' Irish players and supporters demanding a replay of the World-Cup playoff between France and Ireland? I used to hate Roy Keane with a passion, but you've got to love him for explaining in one-word syllables how football works: 'France are going to the World Cup. Get over it.' Life is unfair. Simple. And as he pointed out, oh so aptly, when Ireland won a very dubious penalty against Georgia during the qualifying campaign and it changed the whole game, there was no clamour to offer a replay to the poor Georgians.

There's only been a huge outcry about Thierry's handball because it was so obvious and because so many people saw it. And it's been prolonged because some self-flagellating Frenchmen, including Arsene Wenger, who should know better, have come out in favour of a replay, too. In case you don't remember, England got knocked out of the World Cup by the most blatant handball in history in 1986. There wasn't a replay then, and nor should there have been. Of course I would be swearing at the TV and screaming blue murder if that happened now, but I wouldn't expect a replay. FIFA, for once, were absolutely right. The referee's decision is final. Sometimes he gets it wrong. That is the game. Deal with it.

Roy, I could kiss you. You are absolutely bloody right. I can only imagine what Cloughie would have made of this hoo-ha, but I should think he would have said something very similar. Probably with extra sarcasm. 'Manchester United in Brazil? I hope they all get bloody Diarrheah'.

The sharper-eyed amongst you will have noticed that Harry Reid got his 60 votes, at least for the motion to allow the Health reform bill to proceed to debate on the Senate floor. It's hard to tell what that actually means for the bill itself, but at least the debate can go ahead. Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu, the two big Democratic hold-outs, finally came on side, and that may indicate that they're willing to play. God only knows what kind of pork the bill will need to be loaded with, or what kind of fanatically complicted trigger mechanism or thresholds the public option will need to contain to get their votes on the amended bill, but at least they're prepared to negotiate.

Joe Liebermann will most likely vote against any bill, and is doing his typical prick-tease act to the Democratic caucus. They should just ignore him, but figure they can't afford to, and he knows it. Which probably leave Reid with a heavily amended bill and possibly 58-59 votes, assuming he can keep liberals like Burrell onside, just short of the 60 he needs for a supermajority to avoid a filibuster. At this point it all gets really complicated, and will probably involve the proverbial 'smoke-filled' rooms (except of course they're now smokeless), and plenty of 'sausage-making' behind the scenes. Reid will threaten to withdraw committee status from Liebermann,

Liebermann will not care, so Reid may try to use the Reconciliation process, but even if he does this he'll need 60 votes, so what that would accomplish is unclear. As House Majority Leader he can require the filibustering senator to speak continuously from the floor to block a bill, and that could get very interesting, if not completely absurd.

All in all, it's a giant pile of wank. But having said that, the wider political pressure on the Senate to pass a bill is growing, and will soon become virtually unbearable. A few clever interventions from Pennsylvania Avenue, ratcheting up the stakes, could yet prove decisive. At the end of the day, you don't want to be cast as the one person preventing nearly 50 million Americans from getting affordable insurance. Even if your name is Jim DeMint. So basically, the signs are now pretty good for a Health bill before the end of the year, which would be absolutely amazing.

Of course the next question is, will it be worth it? That is, will the bill be sufficiently radical to make a difference to the US public debt and the widening gap between healthcare costs and salaries, and will it genuinely provide affordable coverage for almost every American? Only time will tell, but whatever happens, this would be an enormous step towards fixing the healthcare system that currently exists and is getting more cripplingly expensive by the day. Plus it would free Obama to start concentrating more on foreign affairs and boost his political capital at an important time before the mid-terms. There will be a backlash, inevitably, against Democrats in some parts of the country, but it will be bearable, and Dems will still control the House, if not the Senate.

Meanwhile, back in the USSR, a new poll put the Tories only 6 points ahead of Labour and gave a desperately needed shot in the arm to a government that has been struggling to put a foot right since the election that never was and the fucked up photo call in Iraq over a year ago. It's an outlier, and probbaly doesn't mean that much, but all of a sudden confident predictions of a swing that would give David Cameron a mandate and a large majority in the Commons look misplaced. We may be about to see, as other have pointed out, the first hung parliament for a long time. Nick Clegg has already ruled out, or appeared to rule out, a new Lib-Lab pact, which means that a Lib-Con coalition may be on the cards, and with the Liberals way out to the left of Labour, what the fuck will that look like?

Well, basically it will mean that almost nothing will get done for five years. There'll just be too much wrangling about taxes, spending cuts, regulation and so on, not to mention foreign policy, in which the parties could hardly be more diametrically opposed. Labour will dump Brown, and Miliband (D) will get the job and set about a new round of ruthless Blairite tabloid-courting. Cameron's emergency budget will only succeed in producing two years of modest growth, masking chronic underinvestment in the public sector, rising unemployment and a further decline in demand and productivity. After five years an exhausted Tory government will relinquish the reins again to Labour who will come in promising immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and more money for schools. Bish bash bosh. Nothing will really change.